FYI: The rise of Vanguard Group (and other) index funds and the entire exchange-traded fund complex in the past decade has been nothing short of astonishing. The legendary index-fund company Vanguard has grown its assets as much in the past five years as it did in the first 35 years cumulatively, based on my calculations . And global ETF assets have now cleared more than $3 trillion, with explosive growth that has lifted total ETF assets up more than 10 times from a decade ago.
Yet given that the ETF is over 20 years old, and Vanguard is more than 40 years old, the question arises…why just in the past 5-10 years has the explosive growth finally shown up?
The answer, in a word (or two): The internet. It was the internet that did it.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2016/12/04/how-the-internet-hurt-actively-managed-mutual-funds/
